Mobile GPS App Maps Stars and Wins Money

The winners of the Spring 2008 WHERE Developer Contest have been announced. Contestants built some very innovative applications on the WHERE API, a platform from uLocate that lets developers create GPS aware applications for mobile phones.

The grand prize winner was Skymap, an application that uses GPS information to create a map of the sky including planets and constellations at your location (1 of 6 "astronomy mashups" on PW). The grand prize winner received US $5,000, a GPS handset, an application review from the AT&T location product team, and inclusion in the WHERE catalog.

The runners up were Mapicurious, which lets you share information about points of interest with others; DigOrDis, which lets consumers rate and search for nearby restaurants and other businesses; and VoiceMap.mobi, which lets you leave voicemail messages tied to a particular location. The runners up received US $1,000 in cash, a GPS handset, and inclusion in the WHERE catalog.

The WHERE API tutorial is a good place to start if you're interested in developing a WHERE app. The tutorial lets you click on a flowchart of an example where API application, highlights the source code that accomplishes that task, and provides a view of what the code displays on a mobile handset.